Board Member: Leslie Carothers

Leslie Carothers is a Scholar-in-Residence at Pace Law School. She also teaches a research seminar on current challenges in environmental law and law reform.

Ms. Carothers served as President of the Environmental Law Institute from 2003 to July, 2011, completing a 40-year career in environmental law and management in the public, corporate, and non-profit sectors. The Institute is the leading independent, non-partisan think tank on environmental law and governance and publisher of the Environmental Law Reporter and other periodicals, research reports, and books. During her tenure, ELI expanded its international presence in international legal education and capacity building and increased its focus on emerging issues such as water supply, energy and climate policy, oceans governance, and the challenge of emerging technologies such as nanomaterials.

Before joining ELI , she served for 11 years as Vice President, Environment, Health and Safety at United Technologies Corporation (UTC) in Hartford, a major manufacturer of products for aerospace and building systems markets. Her business sector experience also included four years as senior environmental counsel for PPG Industries in Pittsburgh.

In the public sector, she served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection from 1987-1991. She began her environmental career with the federal Environmental Protection Agency in the air pollution program in Washington in 1971 and later served as Enforcement Director, Deputy Regional Administrator, and Acting Regional Administrator of EPA’s New England Region in Boston.

She is a past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Audubon Society and the Environmental Law Institute and a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy (Connecticut Chapter). She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Center on Climate and Energy Solutions. In 1991, she was an adjunct lecturer on environmental regulation at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.